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Maria Eronen University of Vaasa
Autobiographical moralizing in celebrity discussions on the Internet – how do discussion participants confess and testify in Finnish and English?
This paper deals with autobiographical moralizing in celebrity-concerned Internet discussions. Autobiographical moralizing is categorized as confessions (when dis- cussion participants moralize themselves) and testimonies (when they moralize people within their private sphere of life). The aim of this paper is to fi nd out the linguistic means and rhetorical function of confessions and testimonies as a part of celebrity-concerned Internet discussions. The research material consists of 900 comments from Finnish and 900 comments from English language forums and dis- cussion boards. Methodically, the study utilizes the analysis of evaluative language.
According to the results, in both Finnish and English language discussions about celebrities, it is typical of confessions to be realized as implicitly positive means of moralizing, whereas testimonies usually involve implicitly negative means of mor- alizing. An indirect comparison between ‘the good me’ and ‘the bad others’ is a way to make oneself seem credible and establish ethos.
Keywords: celebrity, confession, ethos, testimony
1 Introduction: the new era of autobiographical telling
Telling and hearing narratives is a signifi cant part of human nature: before the development of literacy, it was the most prevalent way of maintaining cultural traditions and transmitting values from one generation to the oth- er. Nowadays experiences and feelings are increasingly shared in situations in which a teller and an addressee do not ever meet face-to-face. We have stepped far away from the times when mainly famous people, who were
“somebody”, had the right to publish their own experiences and feelings for a wide audience (see Linde 1993: 37–42). Today everyone can tell what s/he has gone through and bring out an opinion or emotional state in front of an unlimited number of people whom s/he might not know. Social media envi- ronments, such as LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook, and diff erent online news- papers are key factors in this new era of autobiographical telling.
Sharing something that tellers have done, or witnessed themselves, or heard from others is a common criterion for the concept of narrative, re- gardless of its various defi nitions (see e.g. Labov 1972: 359–374; Linde 1993;
Cortazzi & Jin 2003; Bruner 2004). In addition, prescriptive evaluation of hu- man behaviour, that is, the use of moral language (see Hare 2003 [1952]), is a signifi cant element in narrative telling (see Labov 1972: 359–374; Linde 1993: 72–81; Cortazzi & Jin 2003). It is the moral aspect that makes a story worth telling (Bergmann 1998: 281).
My paper is based on the idea that celebrities serve as every-day mor- al examples whose good and bad behaviour makes the audience discuss moral norms relating to their own lives or society at large (see Hermes 1999).
Although moralizing in celebrity discussions on the Internet has been ana- lyzed previously, autobiographical moralizing as a part of those discussions has not been taken into account (cf. e.g. Jerslev 2010). By autobiographi- cal moralizing I mean the evaluation of human behaviour in narrative tell- ing in which the tellers evaluate themselves or people around them (such as friends, neighbours and family members) as moral actors and bring out what these moral actors have done (or would do). Autobiographical mor- alizing does not necessarily relate to complete narratives in the Labovian sense since it is not always structured with temporal clauses (“At fi rst…then/
after that…”) (cf. Labov 1972: 359–374) but may also occur as a short evalua- tion of ‘the self’ and people around it. Nevertheless, like more complete nar- ratives (see ibid.), also autobiographical moralizing is a way of sharing per- sonal experiences and values with others: to show what kind of person one is. Participants in computer-mediated communication are not an exception:
they also need to know whether characters behind the words are trustwor- thy and similar to themselves, or strange, challenging, and dominating (see Miller 2001: 273).
The present paper deals with autobiographical moralizing in celeb- rity discussions on the Internet. The aim of the study has been to fi nd out what linguistic means discussion participants use to evaluate themselves or people around them as moral actors and what rhetorical function au- tobiographical moralizing serves in the discussions. The rhetorical function refers to a social reason to use autobiographical moralizing. The discussions are in Finnish and English, and they relate to two cases of domestic violence (involving a Finnish ex-ski jumper Matti Nykänen and his wife Mervi, and globally known pop singers Rihanna and Chris Brown) and to two cases of fi ghting, involving celebrity females (Finnish entertainment celebrities Mar- tina Aitolehti and Anne-Mari Berg, and a British-American media personality Sharon Osbourne and an American Playboy-model and reality-TV personal- ity Megan Hauserman). Celebrity violence can be seen as a topic which eas- ily leads to moralizing.
In the study, I have also compared the Finnish and English language discussions with each other. The comparison is based on the assumption that discussion participants on the English language forums and discussion boards come from diff erent countries and various cultural backgrounds, which may increase moral uncertainty (see Luckmann 2002: 27–28). It is hard to understand the way others moralize if you do not know the moral norms and personal experiences aff ecting their intentions. Two hypotheses fol- lowing the assumption are proposed. Firstly, compared with Finnish discus- sions on the Internet, participants in English language discussions may have a stronger need to argue for their trustworthiness by giving an impression that morality matters in their lives. Secondly, hiding safely behind anonym- ity may create a stronger temptation to overtly condemn particular private
people. The more multinational and multicultural a forum is, the less likely it is that the moralizer behind the words and the particular private person being moralized would be identifi ed. Consequently, compared with Internet discussions in Finnish, it can be assumed that in the English language discus- sions, there is more need for autobiographical moralizing and also a lower threshold for explicitly negative moralizing of particular private individuals.
2 Material and methods
The research material consisted of 1800 comments from ten diff erent discus- sion forums or discussion boards containing asynchronous Internet discus- sions. 1 A discussion forum is a website that is dedicated to a general (such as Suomi24) or more topic-specifi c Internet discussion (such as Oh No They Didn’t on LiveJournal), while the term discussion board (such as YouTube) re- fers to the possibility to post a comment after a video or an article, published in the social media or on a newspaper website. All discussions included in the study were publicly available and provided the possibility to use pseu- donyms or usernames. Of the research material, 900 comments were in Finn- ish and 900 in English. There were 450 comments relating to each four cases of celebrity violence. 450 comments per case were gathered from three dif- ferent online media environments in such a way that 150 comments came from one discussion board or forum, and if possible, from one discussion thread. The research material can be seen in Table 1.
Every comment in my research material was a part of an Internet dis- cussion relating to a video, a comment, or a gossip article about one of the four cases of violence involving celebrities. Methodically, the study utilized the analysis of evaluative language based on discourse analysis (see e.g.
Martin & White 2005). By fi rst identifying the linguistic means of autobio- graphical moralizing, it was possible to take the rhetorical function of con- fessions and testimonies into consideration.
1 In asynchronous Internet discussions, interaction is structured into turns but com- pared with real-time text chats, a reply might not appear instantaneously but be posted months (or sometimes even years) after the prior turn (see Kolloch & Smith 1999: 5).
TABLE 1. Research material: Celebrity-concerned Internet discussions.
All comments following a video, a gossip story, or the fi rst comment in a main thread, form a discussion. However, I analyzed one comment as one text and focused on the linguistic means it contained. There may be some overlap in the results because one comment may contain several linguis- tic means. Firstly, I took into consideration whether the evaluation of ‘the self’ and people around it were positive (justifi cation or praise) or negative (condemnation and disdain) (see Martin & White 2005: 52–56). Secondly, I examined whether evaluative utterances were explicit (contained evaluative lexis) or implicit and could not be seen on the level of the lexis but rather on the level of phrases, sentences or texts as a whole (see Martin & White 2005: 61–68). Thirdly, from the rhetorical point of view, it was essential to be aware of the fact that evaluative utterances (words, phrases or sentences) analyzed in the study were autobiographical moralizing, not just any kind of moral discourse. For example, the autobiographical utterance “Here things are sorted out in our own way, no authorities are needed for that” (see Exam- ple 1 below), is a way to implicitly compare ‘the good me’ with ‘the bad oth- ers’. By this kind of moralizing discussion participants try to make themselves seem convincing in the eyes of others.
The cases of violence involving celebrities
Asynchronous discussion comments (total 1800) Pop singers Rihanna & Chris Brown
(domestic violence)
Just Jared (150), USATODAY.com (150), YouTube (150)
Ex-ski jumper Matti Nykänen & his wife Mervi (domestic violence)
HS.fi (150), Kaksplus.fi (150), Suomi24 (150)
Entertainment celebrities Sharon Osbourne & Megan Hauserman (fi ght in a TV-show)
The Huffi ngton Post (150), LiveJournal (Oh No They Didn’t) (150), YouTube (150)
Entertainment celebrities Martina Aitolehti & Anne-Mari Berg (fi ght in a bar)
Mtv3.fi (150), Seiska.fi (150), Suomi24 (150)
3 Confessions and testimonies as autobiographical moralizing
Confessions and testimonies are two basic types of autobiographical telling since autobiographical presentations are always based either on the acts or desires of the tellers themselves or people whose acts they have witnessed (see Kujansivu & Saarenmaa 2007: 10–11). In what follows, these two con- cepts will be discussed in more detail.
3.1 The concept of confession
Confession can be defi ned as the ritual of discourse in which the speaking subjects also function as the subjects of their statement, revealing their acts or desires that can be assumed to have a truth value (Foucault 1990 [1978]:
53–73). In confessions as autobiographical moralizing, the confessors tell something signifi cant about themselves as moral actors, and, even if they do not explicitly evaluate themselves, they imply to the hearers or readers how the confessed statement should be judged. According to Michel Foucault (1990 [1978]: 58–59), contemporary Western society is a confessing society in which confessions serve as signifi cant techniques for producing truth in various public and private contexts, like in justice, medicine, education, fam- ily and love relations. Confessing is often seen as revealing something that would otherwise be diffi cult to talk about, such as a crime or trouble.
I argue that a moral aspect is present in confessions in two ways. First- ly, the topic of the narratives of one’s own life is not so much of interest as the way the narrators construct themselves (see Bruner 2004: 702). According to Linde (1993: 105–106, 122–123), in the own-life narratives, ‘the self’ is treated as ‘the other’ by establishing its moral value. As Mead (1934: 154–163) argues, representing oneself in a positive light is essential to being a social self. Thus the basic moral proposition in fi rst-person narratives is “I am a good per- son” (Linde 1993: 123). Secondly, there is a moral aspect relating to the truth value of confessions. According to Foucault (1990 [1978]: 58–59), confession is a signifi cant technique for producing truth. Consequently, the readers or hearers of confessors consider whether their acts have already been done or would really be done in future and whether they are persons they claim to
be. However, confessions made on the Internet may be deliberately told as unbelievable stories: playing on the borderlines of fact and fi ction is evident (Paasonen 2007: 211–214).
3.2 The concept of testimony
While confessors tell about their own acts or desires, testifi ers report what they have seen, heard about or experienced within their private sphere of life. Thus testimony can be defi ned as a ritual of discourse in which the speak- ing subject reveals acts s/he has witnessed. (See Foucault 1990 [1978]: 59;
Felman & Laub 1992.) Although testifying always refers to a third person as a moral actor, the acts testifi ed about are a part of the teller’s life since they have been experienced by him/her in some way, and they, therefore, have a role in his/her own sphere of experience. However, celebrity sightings (i.e.
occurrences in which someone has eye-witnessed a celebrity doing some- thing) are not dealt with here because moralizing people such as celebrities, who are known by all discussion participants, relates to the genre of gossip (see Bergmann 1993).
Moreover, there is a close relation between the concepts of testimony and narrative since testifying is based on witnessing which is often repre- sented in a narrative form (see Lothe 2007). It is also typical of testimonies that they are seen to relate to the narratives of people who have survived from horrifi c and traumatic events, such as the narratives told by Jews who have survived from concentration camps (see e.g. Felman & Laub 1992).
4 Autobiographical moralizing in celebrity discussions
In this section, I will introduce the fi ndings concerning autobiographical moralizing. Of the Finnish discussion comments 29/ 900 (3.2 %) contain au- tobiographical moralizing, whereas the number of comments containing autobiographical moralizing in English language discussions is 39/ 900 (4.3
%). Although the numbers are small, they can be seen to support the hypoth- esis that in English language discussions on the Internet, there is more need for autobiographical moralizing because in multinational and multicultural contexts, participants need to show how moral norms matter in their lives.
From a research ethical point of view, both the copyright issue and the pri- vacy protection are taken into account (see e.g. Bruckman 2002). Due to the copyright issue, the original pseudonyms and usernames can be seen in the examples if they were included in the original posts. However, if the com- ments contain very sensitive material (such as a reference to experiences of domestic violence or overt hostility towards other people), the pseudonyms or usernames have been omitted. Moreover, all profi le owners cited in the study were contacted personally. The moral utterances with a confession or a testimony have been bolded in the examples.
4.1 Confessions in celebrity discussions
In celebrity discussions on the Internet, confessing is typical of autobio- graphical moralizing: in Finnish discussions 20/ 29 (69.0 %) and in English language discussions 34/ 39 (87.2 %) comments of autobiographical mor- alizing contain confessing. Figure 1 shows the distribution of positive and negative moralizing in confessions.
FIGURE 1. Positive and negative moralizing in confessions.
As can be seen in the fi gure above, confessions usually include a positive self- evaluation, which supports Mead’s (1934: 154–163) remarks on the positive evaluation of the (social) self. In Finnish celebrity discussions, 18 comments contain confession as a positive self-evaluation, while only 2 confessions are negative and indicate regret and feeling sorry for one’s own behaviour. In English language celebrity discussions, 31 comments contain confession as a positive and 3 comments as a negative self-evaluation.
Example 1 is a confession from a Finnish Internet discussion concern- ing a bar fi ght involving two celebrity women, Martina Aitolehti and Anne-
Mari Berg. The discussion participant implicitly describes that she wants to be treated as a better and morally more respectable person than the two celebrities who just had had a trial concerning their fi ght.
(1) Voi jee, selvittäisivät bimbot keskenään sotkunsa. Tähänpä sitten me- nee taas veronmaksajien rahoja ja kallista aikaa käräjillä... Meillä päin asiat selvitellään omalla tavalla, siihen ei viranomaisia tarvita.
Kyllä hävettää ihan kaikkien naisten puolesta, tällaisia nää nykysin on, koristeita…
Nainen isolla N:llä!!!
Oh gosh, those bimbos should settle the dispute by themselves. This is a waste of taxpayers’ money and expensive time in court... Here things are sorted out in our own way, no authorities are needed for that.
(I) am so ashamed for all these women, these are what women are to- day, mere decorations...
A Woman with big W!!! (Nainen isolla N:llä!!!, Seiska.fi )
In Example 1, there is a comparison between the discussion participant as a moral actor and the two celebrity women as moral actors. The discussion participant disdains the celebrities because their fi ght was dealt with in court which, according to her, uses a great deal of taxpayers’ money. Moreover, she presents herself in a positive light also in an explicit way by describing herself as “A Woman with big W”, which indicates that she sees herself as a more respectable, “a true”, woman. Example 2 is from an English language discussion concerning domestic violence involving the pop singers Rihanna and Chris Brown. The discussion participant of Example 2 highlights his non- violent nature by describing his own behaviour.
(2) [...] stop replying to me you sadistic twisted asshole. It is clear some woman burned you and instead of moving on you sit online all day stereotyping & hating all black women. My lady slapped the shit out of me when she caught me cheating but I didn’t add injury to insult by hitting her back, and she is not black, neither am I you racist tool. [...]
(username removed, YouTube)
In Example 2, the language user participates in a moral discussion concern- ing domestic violence by emphasising that although his partner hit him, he did not use violence against her. Moreover, he evaluates himself in an indi-
rect way since there is no attitudinal lexis involved (see Martin & White 2005:
61–68). It is also interesting in Example 2 that cheating is not seen as a moral act at all because it is referred to only in passing. On the contrary, slapping as a reaction to cheating is condemned: he could have hit her back had he only wanted to. The theme of the confession in both examples can be seen as generally justifi ed since the language users do not confess to committing a crime or causing trouble that might be regarded as very problematic among other discussion participants (see Foucault 1990 [1978]: 58–59).
Examples 3 and 4 contain confessions that can be seen as more prob- lematic and something that may be more diffi cult to reveal in public. Ex- ample 3 is from a discussion concerning a reality-TV fi ght in which Sharon Osbourne attacked the Playboy model Megan Hauserman after Hauserman had insulted her by calling her husband, Ozzy Osbourne, names.
(3) Honestly, not that I think Sharon is a class act or anything, but if some- one insulted someone I love dearly on national t.v that way I can’t say that I would not fl ash back to my high school self and react physi- cally. [...] (elisabet 85, LiveJournal – Oh No They Didn’t)
A discussion participant in Example 3 adopts Sharon Osbourne’s perspec- tive for her own moralizing and claims that she would also react physically if someone insulted her loved ones the way Hauserman did. It is noteworthy in Example 3, that by denying the possibility of non-violence, the language user takes a so-called heteroglossic perspective (see Martin & White 2005:
92–98, 118–120) on moralizing. This may indicate that because the discus- sion participant sees her own moral view to be in contradiction with that of others, she needs to deny the shared norm that violent reaction would al- ways be wrong. Moreover, by defi ning the physical reaction as a defence, she reveals her desire to be understood as a morally virtuous person. Example 4 is from a Finnish discussion concerning domestic violence and alcohol use of the Finnish ex-ski jumper Matti Nykänen and his wife Mervi. Previously, the discussion has concerned alcohol use as a moral issue or disease.
(4) Alkoholismi ON sairaus
En tätäkään muuten tietäs,mutta yritin 10 vuoden ajan juoda itseäni hengiltä,kun en onnistunut edes seitsemän haimatulehduksen jäl-
keenkään, hain apua AA ryhmästä,ja olen pysynyt yli 25 vuotta raittiina, EN ole yhtään parempi enkä huonompi ihminen siitä huolimatta,kyseisissä palavereissa olen käynyt enemmän kuin 5000, mutta vähemmän kun 10000 kertaa, joten olen muutaman kokemuksen kuullut, että em. sairaudesta voi toipua, jos ON OMA HALU. [...]
Alcoholism IS a disease
I wouldn’t know this otherwise but I tried for 10 years to kill myself by drinking, when I didn’t manage to do it even after seven pancreatitises, I searched for help from AA group, and I have been sober for over 25 years now, nevertheless I’m NOT a better or worse person, I have attended those meetings over 5000 but less than 10000 times, so I have heard a few experiences that you will recover from this disease if you ONLY WANT SO. [...] (pseudonym removed, HS.fi )
At fi rst sight, it might seem that Example 4 does not contain autobiographi- cal moralizing since the language user seems to moralize only those who regard alcoholics as responsible for their own alcohol use. In that sense, he2 disputes that alcoholism would be a moral issue. The reason why he does not regard alcoholism as a moral issue seems, however, to be his self-defence: he tells about how he is not morally responsible for his alcohol use (which he calls “a disease”), and is not, therefore, a bad person. With this kind of self- defence, he takes part in autobiographical moralizing implying the positive moralizing of ‘the self’.
Table 2 shows the linguistic means of confessing in Finnish and Eng- lish language Internet discussions. As can be seen in the table, in both lan- guages, the most typical way of moralizing oneself is to implicitly evaluate
‘the self’ as morally justifi able (80 % of Finnish and 88 % of English language confessions are implicitly positive).
TABLE 2. Linguistic means of moralizing in confessions.
2 The discussion participant uses a male pseudonym.
Linguistic means in confessions
POS n (%) Finnish English
NEG n (%) Finnish English Implicit moralizing 16 (80 %) 30 (88 %) 1 (5 %) 1 (3 %) Explicit moralizing 3 (15 %) 2 (6 %) 1 (5 %) 2 (6 %) n = the number of comments containing linguistic means of confessing
% = the percentage of linguistic means in the comments containing a confession
As mentioned earlier, a negative moralizing of ‘the self’ is exceptional. In ad- dition, Table 2 shows that also an explicitly positive evaluation of ‘the self’ is very rare. It is typical of neither Finnish nor English language discussions that discussion participants would explicitly manifest “I am a good person with respectable moral values” because that kind of utterance might be regarded as self-congratulatory, and the language user, therefore, would seem uncon- vincing.
4.2 Testimonies in celebrity discussions
The numbers of testimonies are even smaller than those of confessions: in Finnish discussions, 11/ 29 (37.9 %) comments of autobiographical moraliz- ing contain a testimony, while in English language discussions, the number of autobiographical comments containing a testimony is 12/ 39 (30.8 %).
Figure 2 demonstrates the distribution of positive and negative moralizing in testimonies.
FIGURE 2. Positive and negative moralizing in testimonies.
Figure 2 indicates that positive moralizing may not be so typical of testimo- nies as the negative one. In Finnish celebrity discussions, 5 comments of au- tobiographical moralizing contain a positive testimony, while 9 of them are negative (note the overlap of positive and negative moralizing). In the Eng- lish language discussions, 2 comments of autobiographical moralizing con- tain a positive testimony and 10 contain a negative one. In Examples 5 and 6, discussion participants testify about violent behaviour of their partner, and at the same time, embody their own role as a victim. Example 5 is from a Finnish discussion concerning both alcohol use and domestic violence in- volving the Finnish ex-ski jumper Matti Nykänen and his wife.
(5) [...] Kun alkoholi hallitsee elämää kaikki muu on toisarvoista. Myös itse olin naimisissa alkoholistin kanssa yli 20 vuotta. Vasta siinä vaiheessa älysin lähteä kun selvisin viime tipassa kuristamisesta.
Olen harmitellut sitä miksi pilasin elämäni tollasen kanssa. Kaikille niille jotka elävät tälläisen ”matti nykäsen” kanssa, kerätkää tavaranne ja lähtekää. Tämä on myös sinulle Mervi! Teitä odottaa varmasti parem- pi elämä.
[...] When alcohol dominates your life everything else is secondary. I was also married to an alcoholic for over 20 years. It was only when I was nearly strangled that I had sense to leave him. I have regret- ted ruining my life with a man like that. To all of you who live with this kind of ”matti nykänen”, pack your stuff and leave. This is also to you Mervi! A better life is surely waiting for you.(pseudonym removed, Suomi24)
Although negative testimony is obvious, the way the discussion participant in Example 5 condemns her ex-husband is implicit. This is also one of the rare comments in which discussion participants evaluate themselves negatively:
she should have left her man earlier. Moreover, in Example 5, celebrities are not seen as good or bad moral teachers or someone, off ering options for dealing with social norms (cf. Hermes 1999: 71). On the contrary, the discus- sion participant tries to give Mervi advice based on her own experiences.
Example 6 is from an English language discussion concerning domestic vio- lence involving Rihanna and Chris Brown. A discussion participant tells what happened when he was taking his girlfriend home by car.
(6) [...] she just went on and on in the car. nonstop, trying to provoke me. and i did not respond. i kept driving. when she fi nally realized she would not get me to engage her [which is why Rihanna kept yap- ping] in any discussion [which is why she would not shut the fuck up]
the next thing i feel is pressure on my head, repeatedly. Then I rea- lized this stupid bitch is hitting me in my head. All of this because I’m trying to help this bitch. (username removed, YouTube)
Example 6 is a more complete narrative in the Labovian sense since it is tem- porally structured (see Labov 1972: 359–374). By this kind of narrative telling, the discussion participant testifi es against his (ex) girlfriend who, according to him, hit him without a reason. Further, the discussion participant evalu- ates his girlfriend explicitly by calling her names (“this stupid bitch”, “this
bitch”). In Example 6, positive confessing and negative testifying are used side by side. The discussion participant also wants to highlight how he sees Rihanna’s behaviour resembling that of his girlfriend.
The linguistic means of testimonies in Finnish and English language discussions can be seen in Table 3. As the table demonstrates, the most typi- cal way to testify is to implicitly disapprove the behaviour of particular pri- vate people: 82 % of Finnish and 75 % of English language testimonies con- tain an implicitly negative testimony.
TABLE 3. Linguistic means of moralizing in testimonies.
Although the number of testimonies is even smaller than that of confes- sions, the comparison between the two languages may indicate that par- ticipants in English language discussions have a lower threshold to explicitly testify against private people. In the Finnish Internet discussions, only 9 % of the comments contain an explicitly negative testimony, while in the English ones the percentage is 50 %. This can be explained by the assumption that in Finnish language discussions, it is more likely that both the testifi er and the object of testifying could be identifi ed, which makes it riskier to explicitly condemn particular private individuals.
5 Conclusion
In celebrity discussions on the Internet, autobiographical moralizing can be seen as one option of participating in a discussion about moral norms. Au- tobiographical moralizing is not expected, and the idea is, therefore, not to compete whose story is the most unbelievable (cf. Paasonen 2007: 212), but rather to give a good impression of oneself by comparing ‘the good me’ with
Linguistic means in testimonies
POS n (%) Finnish English
NEG n (%) Finnish English Implicit moralizing 4 (36 %) 1 (8 %) 9 (82 %) 9 (75 %) Explicit moralizing 1 (9 %) 1 (8 %) 1 (9 %) 6 (50 %) n = the number of comments containing linguistic means of testifying
% = the percentage of linguistic means in the comments containing a testimony
‘the bad others’. As Bergmann (1993: 128) suggests, aiming at presenting oneself in a better light may motivate evaluating others as immoral actors.
In other words, by testifying and confessing, the discussion participants aim at creating ethos, which, according to Aristotle (2008 [350 BC]: 8–9), may al- most be called the most eff ective means of persuasion. By establishing ethos, speakers are able to gain credibility for themselves and their words (ibid.).
Credibility would be destroyed by exaggeration, which explains why, in both Finnish and English language discussions, the most typical linguistic means of autobiographical moralizing are implicitly positive moralizing of ‘the self’
and implicit condemnation of people around it.
Although the number of autobiographical comments was too small for the generalization of the results, the comparison between Finnish and English also indicates diff erences as food for thought. In the English lan- guage discussions, it was slightly more common that participants used au- tobiographical moralizing and overtly testifi ed against people around them, which can be seen to be a consequence of moral uncertainty (see Luckmann 2002: 27–28). In other words, the wider and more pluralistic a forum or a discussion board is, the less likely it is that participants would know each other and each other’s moral values beforehand. This makes autobiographi- cal moralizing in multinational and multicultural Internet discussions both less risky and more necessary compared with discussions of culturally and nationally more limited groups. Sharing a piece of story of one’s own moral life may reduce moral uncertainty by not only making oneself seem more trustworthy but also by indicating trust in others. In celebrity discussions on the Internet, autobiographical moralizing does not occur in a vacuum but has a rhetorical function in suggesting that ‘the moral self’ is to be under- stood as ‘the moral other’.
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